the open field. “Sort of like your factory.”
He sensed her evasiveness and again found himself desperate to know what thoughts lay in Amanda’s mind.
He sipped his wine. “I think there’s more to it than that.”
Amanda paused. “Do you?”
“Yes. And I’d like to know the whole story.” Nick grinned. “Besides, you trust me, remember? And I’m your new best friend.”
Amanda set her plate aside and studied him. At first, it irked Nick a bit that she wouldn’t simply tell him what he wanted to know. Did she not trust him? Could she believe he wasn’t genuinely interested?
“All right, I’ll tell you,” Amanda finally said, leaving him feeling that he’d accomplished something with her. “You arranged my escape from the house today. I suppose I owe you.”
Nick pushed the hamper aside and scooted a little closer to her on the blanket. But she gazed off across the field again, and for a moment he wondered if she really would tell him.
Finally, she looked back at him. “My father died when I was eleven years old. Mother was quite devastated, of course. She was also quite unprepared to make a life for us. She’d never worked. She had no skills, no training. Nothing that would allow her to get any sort of decent job.”
Nick shifted on the blanket. What Amanda was telling him was something highly personal and surely painful. Maybe he’d have been better off letting it alone, not insisting she tell him. Then, just as quickly, he disregarded the notion. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Amanda.
“It didn’t take long before the little money my father left us was gone,” Amanda said. “We lost our home. Mother didn’t want to accept charity.”
“But what about your uncle? The man’s worth a fortune.”
“Yes, but Uncle Philip was a distant relative of my father’s, and Mother didn’t know him,” Amanda said. “Finally, though, when things got really bad, she sent me to live there.”
“Why didn’t she come herself?”
“As I said, Mother wouldn’t take charity,” Amanda told him. “For me, yes. But not for herself.”
“But still…”
Amanda thought for a moment. “I think Mother was intimidated by them. Their money, their lifestyle. She knew she wouldn’t fit in.”
“But she sent you?”
“She never intended for me to stay with them. She simply wanted them to take care of me until she could get on her feet and make a home for the two of us.”
“But that never happened?”
Amanda glanced away. “No. She died.”
“I’m so sorry,” Nick whispered, and had never meant anything more in his life. Instinctively, he covered her hand with his. She felt fragile and small, her fingers warm against his skin. Amanda gave him a wan smile, then withdrew her hand, seemingly not comfortable with too much sympathy directed at her.
Nick wondered why he’d never heard about Amanda’s background when she’d first come to live with the Van Pattons. Their families had been close. Why had he not known these things about her?
Amanda drew in a deep breath, as if pushing the old memories to the recesses of her mind, where they belonged. “So, if Mother could have found decent work and a place to live, things would have turned out very differently for us.”
“And you think you can right that wrong by building your refuge?”
“Yes.”
Nick studied her for a long moment, absorbing the determined spark in her eyes, the set of her jaw. He nodded. “I think you can, too.”
“You do?” she asked, and seemed a little surprised. “You hardly know me.”
“I know you well enough to see that once you put your mind to something, Amanda, you’ll see it through. Which,” Nick said, “is a quality I very much admire.”
Another shy smile tugged at her lips, pulling him even closer to her. Something about this woman called to him, intrigued him, lured him. He leaned forward, his gaze locked with hers, and kissed her.
Nick’s heart thundered in his chest as he pressed his mouth against Amanda’s. He hadn’t known he was going to kiss her, hadn’t meant to do it. Yet it seemed the most natural thing in the world.
Sweet. Oh, she tasted sweet. Slowly, Nick blended his lips with hers, savoring the feel of her, then pulled away.
It was a chaste kiss. Nothing hot or sweaty or passionate. But heat pumped through Nick with an intensity he hadn’t expected.
He looked at her face, inches from his. He felt her hot breath on his skin, and knew he wanted to kiss her again. More than that, he wanted to devour her. Smother her with the passion suddenly boiling inside him.
Nick drew back from her. Her pink lips were wet, her cheeks flushed and her blue eyes wide. Everything about Amanda summoned him, beckoned him to lean forward again, kiss her once more.
Should he? He sure as hell wanted to.
“We should get back to town,” he said, surprised at how low and raspy his own voice sounded.
Amanda nodded, seeming to understand his dilemma and their situation clearly. “Yes, we should.”
They tossed the remains of their picnic into the hamper. Nick got to his feet and gazed across the open field, annoyed to realize that the old Whitney farm would never be the same again.
Not after kissing Amanda.
“What did you dream last night?”
Amanda glanced to her left and saw Nick’s Aunt Winnifred take the seat beside her in the music room of the Hastings home. While the wedding party was at the rehearsal, Constance had named Winnifred hostess for the evening. Amanda and the other ten houseguests had just finished supper and were now gathering in the music room for the evening’s entertainment Constance had arranged.
“Well?” Winnifred asked, leaning a little closer.
Around them, voices blended pleasantly and skirts rustled as everyone settled into chairs.
“Let me think,” Amanda said, stalling. Last night she’d dreamed of Nick, but she didn’t intend to tell Winnifred.
It wasn’t the first time she had experienced a dream in which Nick played a starring role. Over the years, the vision of him often crept into her slumbers. And much to Amanda’s distress, the dream was always the same.
Her, in a crowded room, when Nick walked in. He crossed the room, speaking to everyone—but her. She reached out to him as he drew near. Yet he always stayed an arm’s length away. She could never quite touch him. Never get him to look at her. Never get him to speak to her.
Amanda had often wondered
